Type Passenger Opened 1935 Track gauge 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) | Stations 6 Line length 16.9 km Termini Itō Station | |
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Operator East Japan Railway Company | ||
rail japan jr ito line atami ito part 1
The Itō Line (伊東線, Itō-sen) is a railway line owned by the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) which connects Atami and Itō Stations, along the east coast of Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. From Itō, the line continues south to Shimoda under the privately owned and operated Izu Kyūkō Line.
Contents
Rolling stock
A rebuilt four-car 651 series resort train set named Izu Craile (伊豆クレイル) is scheduled to enter service on the Ito Line from summer 2016. The name is a portmanteau formed from "Cresciuto" (Italian for "mature"), "train", and the suffix "-ile". Car 1 will have window-facing counter seats on the seaward side, car 2 will have a bar counter and lounge, car 3 will have semi-open compartments, and car 4 will have conventional unidirectional 2+2-abreast seating.
History
Initial plans called for the Japanese National Railways (JNR) to build a spur line linking Atami on the Tokaido Main Line with Shimoda. However, funding was limited in the 1930s due to a combination of a tight fiscal policy under Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi during the Great Depression, and a number of technical issues. The projected route of the Itō line along the mountainous east coast of the Izu Peninsula required numerous tunnels and bridges. Workers digging a tunnel near Usami encountered problems with underground hot springs, similar to that experienced in the construction of the Tanna Tunnel, which had recently been completed years later than originally projected and far over budget.
On March 30, 1935, the initial 8.7 km section of the Itō Line linking Atami with Ajiro was opened. The second (8.3 km) section from Ajiro to Itō was opened on December 15, 1938. Both sections were electrified at 1,500 V DC when opened. Further work was delayed, and then canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.
CTC signalling was commissioned in 1958, and the Atami to Kinomiya section was duplicated in 1968. The entire line was originally designed to be built as double track, and earthworks were undertaken on this basis, including tunneling, but to date only the first 1.2 km of the line has been duplicated.
Construction south of Itō resumed in 1961, when the private-sector Tokyu Corporation acquired the rights to complete the line to Shimoda and established the Izukyu Corporation to manage construction and operations of this section.